Self-Portraits

Chapter 1

Fantin-Latour cultivated this genre in his youth, particularly from 1854 to 1861, and over the course of his career he produced approximately fifty self-portraits in the form of paintings, drawings and engravings. This visual private diary, which documents the artist’s changing moods as well as the ravages of time, follows in the footsteps of other obsessive self-portraitists such as Rembrandt and Courbet. Like them, Fantin made full use of the drama of chiaroscuro: a background hidden in gloom, the face half in shadow and half in light, and the well-lit areas emphasised with heavy impasto.